Ten years later
by Ertal77
Summary: Our boys from the Gangsters AU: a little view of their life away from London Berlin, 1940: Doctor Watson opens the door of a hotel room...


"...You are so funny, Doctor Hirsch!", said the woman as she opened the door of her hotel room. I flinched a bit on hearing the name, but I kept my fabricated smile firm on my face. "It's such a pity that we never met in Vienna! Tell me, why did your father decided to move to Switzerland?"

I stepped in the room and closed the door behind me, trapping me inside. Dora Haase went to the gramophone and started to explore the discs.

"He was in love with the Alps, always had been", I made out, still smiling.

"No wonder, they are simply fascinating... Where, again, did you tell me you live?"

"Interlaken", I answered, and flinched again.

Because, that? Too close from home, I shouldn't have said it, I was giving too much personal information.

'Wait a moment, what am I thinking? No, no, Switzerland is not home, Switzerland is exile, never forget it; doesn't mind that we have been living there for ten years now, home is _London_, always will be. Soon. After this, after the war, perhaps before it finishes, a couple of missions more and we will come back home, Sherlock swore it.'

What was I even doing there? I was terrible at lying; Sherlock was the one good at it, and he was who should be in that hotel room, not me. I sighed, trying to maintain the smile, feeling it tight and fake on my face. Thank God the woman had her back to me.

She had already picked a disc, and the first notes of Glenn Miller's _Moonlight serenade_ invaded the room. Dora turned, smiling, and reached for me. It was fine, dancing was fine. After a few songs it was better than fine, in fact: I was having real fun for the first time that night. Dora moved with feline gracefulness despite her age. Carmen Miranda and Frankie Masters followed Glenn Miller, and I made her fly across the room; but then Billie Holliday's _Strange Fruit_ took possession of our mood, and we slowed down, enjoying our deliberate and intimate breathings. When the song finished, she let me go and said, laughing:

"I'm sweating; do you mind if I go to the bedroom to refresh a bit?"

I was completely alright with it; especially because it was the chance I was waiting for. As soon as she closed the bedroom door, I ran to open her handbag. Makeup. Purse. A bracelet. Handkerchief. Pocket mirror. And nothing else. I grunted softly, looking around. There had to be information somewhere, but I couldn't see any papers, any letter, anything useful. When I heard the door starting to open, I pretended to study the discs. I turned to face her, and my smile froze on my face: she was wearing a pale pink silk nightgown, with a cleavage that left very little to imagination, and a naughty grin that reminded me of a cat the moment before jumping on top of a distracted bird.

"Leave Glenn Miller on the gramophone and sit with me, Doctor… I still have a bottle of champagne; it would be a pity to waste it and I leave tomorrow morning…"

I placed the disc on the gramophone and put the needle to the beginning; _Stairway to the stars_ started to sound and I went to sit next to the tigress. She hummed the melody and poured two glasses of champagne. I took one and sipped it.

"Oh, this champagne is fantastic or I was thirsty…", I said, stopping when she took my free hand and began to run her fingers across my palm.

"Doctor's hands…", she whispered. "I bet you are really skilled with them…"

And then my captive hand was over her breast, held there with her two hands; and I was in disadvantage, I had to place my glass over something, but I couldn't find any side table near enough, and I couldn't remember the last time I held a woman's breast, it was so _warm_, and soft, and the weight, I didn't remember the pleasant weight of it. Dora was in her middle forties, but her breast was still quite firm and it was so _nice_… 'Sherlock. Think of Sherlock'. OK, I did. No good. I was angry with him, because he was in Paris instead of being there with me. I remembered the phone call two days ago:

"And why aren't you the one who has to retrieve information out of a general's wife?", I asked, suspicious.

"John, we both know that, from the two of us, you are the one who is good at flirting with women and being charming."

"I still remember all those society notes from the newspapers in London, only for your information."

He laughed at the phone.

"I can't believe you remember that! Well, John, I'm too old now to try to be charming with women. I can be polite at most, and it won't do."

Son of a bitch. No, that memory wasn't working in the current situation. 'Think of Sherlock in bed'. Good idea. No, bad idea; Dora's smile went wider when she noticed the growing strain at my trousers. Not my fault, had it been a full month since last time? Sherlock was always so busy… In fact, last time was only a hand job at the men's toilet of the Foreign Office in Paris. He worked me hard and fast, my trousers and underwear down my thighs, while he whispered filthy words inside my ear, his breath warm on my neck, and all the while deducing me, deducing all that I had thought about him that day, all that I wished to do, just because he could, the brilliant bastard, and God how I missed him.

That thought did the trick. I stopped on time the prickling of my eyes and the sob that tried to escape from my throat, but it was enough to feel my groin again in its natural state and to release my hand from Dora's. Her face was fifty per cent surprise and fifty per cent disappointment.

"I'm really sorry, Dora, but I can't."

"Oh? Don't tell me you are married!"

"In fact, I am". Not a great lie.

"That's not true. You aren't wearing a ring."

I looked at my hands, accurately devoid of rings.

"Well, I am not very fond of jewellery…"

"That's a lie! You simply don't find me attractive enough", she pouted.

Was she going to cry? Oh, no, I hadn't done that in many, many years, I didn't know how to comfort a woman any more. And I couldn't leave, not with my hands empty: I still hadn't got absolutely anything for Sherlock. 'Be sincere and nice'.

"It's not that, Dora, not that at all. Even the blind would find you attractive."

She smiled a bit at that.

"Your husband should care more for you and tell you often how beautiful you are."

She snorted.

"Please. He's too busy with that clerk of his. She thinks that I am so dumb that I don't know where he meets with her, that I don't know that she's with him now at that hotel where all the generals have that meeting. "

"Is he here, in Berlin?", I asked, cautious.

"No, in Stuttgart, in the Gaisburg Hotel. I even found the number of the room, can you believe it? And I phoned the hotel: it is a double room."

I patted her back, and she leaned and rested her face on my shoulder. I hid a grin: I finally had what I was looking for! The exact place where the top brass of the Third Reich was meeting that week to plan the development of the summer campaign. We could now inform the Foreign Office and the allies would make a move. Bombing, perhaps. I didn't like to think of that part. I didn't have to. What I had to think about that very moment was what to do with that angry and drunk woman that was sobbing against my shoulder.

"Hey, you know what? Forget about him tonight: we have music, champagne and good company."

I reached for her glass and placed it in her hand. She sipped, sighing.

"And, on top of all, that bitch's father is a _jew.", _she almost spat the last word.

"Hate is not sexy, Dora", I advised her.

"Your accent is sexy; I didn't notice how sexy the Swiss men talked when I was there… Pity!"

'Of course, dear', I thought, amused, 'because it's German with an English accent what you are hearing.'

"But I bet you lied and you are not married… You don't even have the mark from a ring… Never wore one, eh?"

We drank a couple of glasses more, and at last she fell asleep on my shoulder. I made her sit upright, pushed an arm under her armpits and dragged her to her bed. All in all, the night hadn't been so bad.

I phoned Sherlock as soon as I arrived to my own hotel room, much more modest than Dora's. He picked it at the first pip.

"John. You were supposed to phone hours ago. Has all been alright?"

"Well, a bit more complicated than we planned, but I've got what we wanted."

I felt Sherlock tensing at the other side of the phone.

"Do I have to worry, John?"

His voice was icy. I laughed.

"What do you think? All is fine, but I had to accompany her to her bedroom."

"You were supposed to only invite her to a couple of drinks at the hotel bar, John."

I couldn't stop grinning.

"Hey, I was thinking", I said. "Remember we couldn't celebrate my birthday properly? And that you didn't know what to give me as a present?"

"No; you didn't know what you wanted as a present, it was barely my fault: I asked you!"

"Well, I know now what I want."

"Oh?"

"I want a ring."

Silence.

"Like a seal ring?"

"No, more like a gold plain ring."

"You want a wedding ring?"

"Yes, please."

"Do you realize that we can't get married, don't you?"

"I do. I only want to wear a ring, one selected and given to me by you."

I could _see_ his grin across the telephone, matching mine.

"You will have it waiting for you when you arrive to Paris."

"Three days."

"Three days, yes."

"How much time for London?"

He sighed; he missed the city as much as I did. Many years had passed and many things had happened: Mycroft worked for the Government now, and he had an 'honorable' aura surrounding him. Lestrade and I were on good terms again, and he phoned us very often; he even consulted Sherlock when he had a difficult case. Not that I would consider working with him again, but I was happy about the turn of events, and it would be nice being back in London with friendly faces around. Things were still hard for people like Sherlock and me, the 40's in fact looked harder than the 30's had been, but we were already used to hide and pretend, and all the people who mattered (not many: his mother, his brother, my sister, and a couple of friends) were alright with it. But someday. Someday we would be in London again and we wouldn't have to hide any more.

"Soon", said Sherlock at the phone, his deep voice soft and warm, "very soon, John".


End file.
